At the head of the lake we find ourselves in an enormous
amphitheatre of mountains. Glaciers are peering down upon us.
Snow-fields glare at us with glistening eyes. Black crags seem to
bend above us with an eternal frown. Streamers of foam float from
the forehead of the hills and the lips of the dark ravines. But
there is a little river of cold, pure water flowing from one of the
rivers of ice, and a pleasant shelter of young trees and bushes
growing among the debris of shattered rocks; and there we build our
camp-fire and eat our lunch.
Hunger is a most impudent appetite. It makes a man forget all the
proprieties. What place is there so lofty, so awful, that he will
not dare to sit down in it and partake of food? Even on the side of
Mount Sinai, the elders of Israel spread their out-of-door table,
"and did eat and drink."
I see the Tarn of the Elk at this moment, just as it looked in the
clear sunlight of that August afternoon, ten years ago. Far down in
a hollow of the desolate hills it nestles, four thousand feet above
the sea. The moorland trail hangs high above it, and, though it is
a mile away, every curve of the treeless shore, every shoal and reef
in the light green water is clearly visible. With a powerful field-
glass one can almost see the large trout for which the pond is
famous.
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